One hundred years ago, in celebration of the holiday season, The New York Herald Tribune European edition (a forerunner of today's IHT) published its annual Christmas supplement. The richly illustrated pages contained original artwork and articles on a variety of topics.
Women and winter sports featured prominently (“With no one are winter sports more popular than with the fair sex,†read part of the text), and there was a long essay by Thomas Nelson Page titled “Christmases of the Nation†that expounded upon the history of Christmas in the United States. “In no part of the world is Christmas celebrated with more warmth and cheer than in America,†the essay began enthusiastically.
There were pages in French (the European edition was, and still is, headquartered in Paris) about various topics including dolls, the Russo-Turkish war of the 1870s, and film. There were plenty of luxurious ads for travel companies. The supplement also had several full-pag e color illustrations such as this one, titled “The Christmas Cotillion of Our Cities†by Arthur I. Keller (probably this man).
As a gift to our modern-day readers, we present to you here an abridged text of the last article of the supplement, titled “The Parisian Christmas,†no author credited, complete with contemporary spellings and language.
Happy holidays, and stayed tuned for more from our archives, as the IHT celebrates 125 years.
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THE PARISIAN CHRISTMAS
The New York Herald, Paris, Sunday, December 22, 1912.-Christmas Supplement
Some people there are who have said that there is “no real Christmas†in France. They were, needless to say, foreigners, or rather strangers, who saw perhaps the “Réveillon†of Christmas and the New Year in a café or night restaurant, and welcomed in whichever of th e two days it was to the strains of a tzigane orchestra. Are not these festivities a distinct feature of the celebrations in Paris? Yes, certainly, but they are far from being all that there is to a French Christmas.
That there is an essential difference between the viewpoint of Anglo-Saxon and Gaul is certain. To define the difference, however, is less easy than to state that it exists. It has been said that in France, Christmas was a religious fêTe, while in England and America it was a family holiday. Though some may quarrel with the definition on the ground that it is over sweeping, it is yet not so far from the truth.
To the French family, Christmas begins with the visits to the churches, where tapers are lighted before the little groups representing the Nativity, more or less elaborate according to the wealth or poverty of the quarter. There are, of course, many who come out of pure curiosity, but to the great majority these little visits are very near and very true. Every year, prince and pauper, youth and old age, symbolize the Wonderful Legend. For the time being, they are shepherds or kings, and the little flame-crowned candles are as symbols of the gifts brought by these first adorers.
What man who has attended a midnight mass on Christmas Eve at a great basilica or cathedral can forget it? Here, too, the curious come in their hundreds, but even the most brazen “sightseer†among them cannot but realize the deep religious feeling which moves this human stream….
But it must not be imagined that Christmas is not also a family fête. In France, le Bonhomme Noël drives his team of reindeer-or is it an automobile nowadays-even as does Santa Claus in lands where he is called by that name….
No Christmas tree in France? Have you then never strolled along that part of the quays where noble firs and baby first, fat ones and thin ones, stand in the shadow of the Conciergerie until Father comes with his hat chet-only it is a louis to-day-to take home The Tree for his dearest ones….
For the base of this ever-green abbey, for the underbrush of this forest of dreams, you have the deep-green masses of holly, jewelled with red, which men and women bring there to sell so that their Little Ones may have a happy Christmas….
Here we have mistletoe, and Jeanne watches her mother with a half-smile as she buys a great ball of dainty gray-green leaves and wax-like berries. Yes, Monsieur l'Anglais, the same custom exists here, and we pretend not to see, and hope, and then scream, in just the same way as Bess and Joan.
It is nightfall now, and over there by the bridge a little cluster of people, returning from work, has gathered round three street-singers, a woman and two men. From this distance, you cannot hear the words. In all probability, it is some very modern romance they are singing, but if you make-believe, you will almost think it is one of those naive carols of olden times.
Then from Christmas, when Hope was born, to the New Year, when we marshal our armies to fight the battle of life again. Let us laugh and make merry, for we are on the eve of a new era…. Laughter, songs and music to hail 1913, which must bring better things!….
New Year's Day brings gifts and flowers…. France calls on its relatives and friends, the postal authorities celebrate the occasion by delivering cards six weeks late, and families gather to make good resolutions, to chat about those dear ones who are too far away to join in the happy circle….
After all, it is much the same the world over. Outwardly, it may vary a little, but the spirit and heart are the same. Logician, pessimist, unbeliever, by whatever name you choose to call yourself, we must write you down an ass. But even though you are but a dismal fool, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
